


Tricking Myself Nice

by themadnutter



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Codependency, Incest, M/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 11:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14259543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadnutter/pseuds/themadnutter
Summary: With Jerome on a war path, Jeremiah is forced to face not only his past, but the truth about himself.





	Tricking Myself Nice

**Author's Note:**

> A Jeremiah character study based on episode 4x17. Title taken from "Two Evils" by Bastille.

_I’m the lesser of two evils_  
_Or am I, am I tricking myself nice?_

 

Jeremiah’s finishing his dinner when he first feels it.

A creepy, crawly tickling slithers down his spine, the hair on his neck standing upright.  Heart rate quickens, a warning of danger - but most of all, a deep _ache_ in his chest, unwanted but demanding his attention. His fork stills over his mostly clean plate, grip tight as he holds his breath, doesn’t dare to breathe.  Jaw clenched, he places his fork down on his napkin, stands from his chair, ignores the concerned look Ecco is sending him across the table.

“Jeremiah?”

He lifts a hand to quiet any other questions she may pose, all senses focused on the familiar pulse throbbing in his chest like a drum, like the call of the sea.  Something innate, as natural as breathing.

It’s been a long time he’s felt the gravitational pull of his twin.

“Jerome,” he says, quiet, a confession and challenge.   _You, it’s always you._

Ecco’s on her feet immediately, darting to the security cameras. “He can’t be here.  The alarms would have triggered.”

“No,” Jeremiah says, the word thick around his tongue as his throat clenches. “But he’s coming.”

“How do you know?” Ecco asks, keeping her distance even as worry slips into her tone.  

He doesn’t know how to explain it.  Not to someone who isn’t a twin, who doesn’t have a second half, whose soul isn’t split in two, only whole when they are together.  Even then, their whole is fractured, split into jagged lines from a lifetime of knives and lies.

Jeremiah can’t remember a time when it wasn’t this way.

“Call it a twin sense,” Jeremiah deadpans, a weak attempt at a joke that he knows falls flat - he was never good at those, that was always his brother’s forte.  Jokes and tricks, a charismatic sleight of hand with a manic grin - he was made for the violent limelight, and Jeremiah, for cold, clinical schemes behind closed doors.

Ecco’s silent.  Jerome can hear the click of her nails on the keys, turning on the security cameras.  All is still, quiet.

All except his restless heart; the ache deepens, tugs at his rib cage and fills his veins with a heavy, cold dread.

“You should go to bed.  You’ve been working yourself too hard again.”

Jeremiah can read between the lines: _it’s all in your head._

He wants to turn, wants to tell her that he has always sensed when Jerome is near or on the move: a prickling at the back of his neck when Jerome would sneak into his bedroom and hide under his bed, a stinging pain when Jerome broke his arm from falling off a trapeze at age six, a headache when Jerome escaped Arkham for the first time, and when Jerome was shot dead, Jeremiah woke up in a cold sweat with his brother’s name on his lips for the first time in years.

Gotham is ever changing, but not even this hellish city can deny the truths written in shared flesh and blood.

Jeremiah has felt the loss of Jerome like a phantom limb, and tonight, that limb is engulfed in fire.

\--

He bids Ecco a good night and retires to his modest bedroom with haste.

Picking up the television remote, his thumb lingers on the power button.

_You know who you’re going to see._

Steeling himself, he turns on the television, which casts an eerie blue glow across the plain white walls.

**_Police are seeking three men who have broken out of Arkham Asylum and are suspected be leading a riot.  These men are considered armed and dangerous and should not be approached. This footage shows them leaving the asylum._ **

Jeremiah’s chest tightens, breath choked out like he’s been punched in the gut.

There, in the grainy black and white footage, stands Jerome.

\--

Viewing Jerome from the distant comfort of old video footage is one thing.  Having his brother in a room down the hallway is another matter altogether.

Since Ecco dropped Jerome off in his new prison, Jeremiah has watched him. His first thought is, despite the new stiches of scarring and ragged haircut (each detail observed like a crime scene, a piece of evidence to weave the tale of how a boy turned into a monster), he hasn’t changed at all.

Still the same old Jerome: wild confidence and booming voice, even when he’s down, and those bright, animated eyes sharp enough to cut diamonds.  Goading, always _goading_ Jeremiah into responding to him, to giving him the attention that he so desperately craves, regardless if they’re two years old or over twenty.

(But there is a deeper reason Jerome pushes and prods, Jeremiah has learned over the years.  One that has very little to do with Jerome’s violent proclivities, and everything to do with Jeremiah’s own.)  

 _Maddening_ , he thinks, tightening his hands into fists when Jerome shoves his face into the camera.

 **_So nice seeing you again, bro - I mean, if I could see you.  Why don’t you come by and we’ll hug it out, hm? We have_ ** **so** **_much to catch up on._ **

Jeremiah wants to, if only to denounce him for the demon that he is.

But there is a greater danger in facing Jerome, one that has nothing to do with his brother’s violent proclivities.

 **_That is_** , Jerome says, flayed lips curling into a sneer, **_unless you’re scaaared._ **

Nostrils flare, and Jeremiah bites back that ugly rush of emotion that lies dormant in him like a sleeping dragon piled in gold.  Seldom felt but always there - just like his connection to Jerome, an ugly truth about himself that he cannot be rid of, no matter how hard he tries.

_Because it’s not him that you’re scared of, are you?_

He turns off the camera, takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, trying to rid himself of the image of Jerome’s mangled face - and how easily that could be his own.

_Who do you really see when you look at him?_

\--

Later that night, Jeremiah shatters the only mirror he owns.  His bloody hands stain his white sheets when he goes to sleep.

\--

When he turns the camera back on, Jerome is lying down like a starfish, pretending to make snow angels on the cold, hard floor.

 **_I love you_** , Jerome says, blows a kiss to the camera with a faux-shy smile.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Jeremiah remembers how Jerome would say that as a kid, running at him to bite, kick, and push him around with toddler-chubby fists and shrieking delight.   _Love you, Miahhhh_ , he’d coo while pelting Jeremiah with muddy slaps until Jeremiah wailed for their mother.

 _Yes, Jerome, I know your love_ , Jeremiah thinks, the thought bitter on his tongue.

Jerome’s love is a weapon, covered in barbs and poison.  Jeremiah is not made for Jerome’s style of love - even when he once wanted nothing more for his brother to be kind, to love him in the gentlest of ways.

 _Monster,_ he thinks, a growling accusation speared toward his twin, hoping that Jerome feels it in the abyss of his insanity.

_You or him?_

The thought gives him pause, blood running cold.

_You are cut from the same cloth, no matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise._

He turns off the screen again, tells himself that he is not the sins of his brother.

(He’s been lying for years.  It’s an art.)

\--

The GCPD is a blessing and a curse.

Truthfully, Jeremiah has wanted to meet Jim Gordon ever since he brought justice to their dear mother, may God watch over her.  He tries to convey that to him without sounding overly grateful (social niceties aren’t his forte either, his words always too stilted even when his heart means well).  But they want to take Jerome away from him, to some place where Jeremiah cannot watch over him, and even though Jerome’s constant presence is a source of anxiety in and of itself, he simply cannot allow it.

And just when he thinks he’s getting somewhere, Jim’s partner makes a simple, deadly mistake.

He compares Jeremiah to his twin.

“I am nothing like Jerome,” Jeremiah spits, using his height to his advantage to tower over Jim as he shoves forward, an act of intimidation.

The dark, rolling matter that sleeps within his soul churns, kindles a spark of black fire that burns the edges of his prized rationality.  He can feel himself start to slip, his head going underwater, drowning in the depths of a wild, untameable ocean -

_He sees right through you, you know._

Jim’s speaking to him, but Jeremiah can’t look away from Harvey, staring him down with an ardent ferocity he rarely feels these days, all fueled by his untapped, gruesome potential.  Everything he sees is red, the need to _hurt hurt hurt, I’ll show you who’s the mad one when you choke to death on your blood_ -

\- _stop._

Jeremiah comes to, resisting the urge to gasp as he surfaces from the downward spiral.  He blinks once, twice until Jim comes back into focus, and he responds to Jim like nothing happened, like he wasn’t more monster than man for a few seconds.

The horrid beast inside him rescinds, quiets down.

This too is temporary.

\--

Seeing Jerome face-to-face, inches away, is more than he can bear.

A sensation overload: the burning pang of every fibre in his body yearning to reconnect and reunite with his missing half, his vision swimming as he catalogues every detail of Jerome’s face (the scars have healed nicely for being relatively untreated, he wonders if they still hurt), listens to that ringing voice that once mocked him in the night.

Jerome is a ball of raging fire, spewing accusations like a cobra does venom, but beneath it all, there is _hurt._

**_Poisoned by your lies.  Mother gave up on me._ **

Jeremiah’s heart pounds as he tries to digest this, work his mind around what Jerome must have suffered in his wake.  He knows this is the truth - Jerome’s face is raw, bleeding a deep-seated misery that overflows from every pore. And now, standing before him, Jeremiah’s cheeks sting as if he can feel the knife that has cut into Jerome’s skin - and not just that knife, but all the knives that Jerome has bore because of Jeremiah.

It’s so easy to fall under Jerome’s spell (the power Jerome wields over him is insurmountable, even after all these years), and Jeremiah feels weak in his knees, crippled by the peculiar combination of anger-fear-guilt-love that only Jerome can brew within him.  Jeremiah wants to reach out and trace those scars so he can understand Jerome better, so he can try to connect with him on a physical level. He wants to press their foreheads together, to breathe in the same air until he forgets where Jerome begins and where he ends, embracing a oneness he has tried to hide from for so many years.  Because this is the only way Jeremiah knows how to apologize, how to make things right for himself: by sharing Jerome’s pain, letting him know he feels it now, at last.

But he cannot do these things.

Jeremiah is the good, faithful son, and he cannot allow himself to be weakened by these soft-hearted temptations.

Especially not when Jerome is looking at him like he’d do anything for Jeremiah’s touch, for his validation.

_Brother, who have we become?_

\--

Matters escalate, as everything involving Jerome eventually does.

He finds himself pressed against Jerome, back to chest, and he can feel how fast Jerome’s heart is beating even through the layers of their suits.  It’s the closest they’ve been to each other since they were kids, and through the waves of fear is a kind of sensation that Jeremiah hasn’t felt in a long time.

_Belonging._

He wants to free himself from Jerome’s hold, wants to surrender to Jerome’s morbid desires.

_You are him and he is you, and if you are to die by his hand, then at least you die before your true self becomes you._

But he doesn’t.  Jerome releases him, but not without a kiss behind the ear that burns a hot line down Jeremiah’s spine, settling in his gut in a most forbidden way.  Cheeks flush, and all he can do is stand as he watches his brother twirl away in flurry of gunfire, every bit a seductive firecracker.

When Harvey and Jim take Jeremiah away, he absently rubs the spot where Jerome kissed.

For once, the burn caused by Jerome is not unpleasant.

\--

The GCPD cell where he stays is discomforting in its foreignness, cold in a way that his isolated home underground never achieved.  Jeremiah curls up on his cot and tries not to think about Jerome, about where he’s staying, what he’s doing, how he is handling their fated encounter.

 **_Did you think about me?_ ** Jerome had asked.  

 _Every day and every night,_ Jeremiah wants to say.   _Since the day I left you._

Admitting these things to Jerome would be admitting a greater truth.  That there is a reason why he cannot look Jerome in the face for too long; that he both needs Jerome to be as far away and as close as possible; that something lurks within Jeremiah, something truly terrifying, and being around Jerome awakens it - and Jerome knows it, tries to light the ticking time bomb that is Jeremiah every chance he gets.

_Don’t you see, brother?  This is why I had to leave you._

Jeremiah squeezes his eyes shut, covers his face with a pillow like a child.

It is not easy to denounce what is reflected in you; even a shattered mirror still bears a reflection.

He remembers the scars he saw on Jerome, the ones carved on his face and on his abused soul.  He remembers the kiss, a lingering show of affection that still ignites a pool of white heat in his stomach, burning low and heavy.

He remembers his final goodbye to his mother, and the way his world came crashing down when he learned of her death.  He had never cursed Jerome harder, never wanted to be closer to him.

He remembers the desperate way Jerome looked at him, the utter betrayal painted on him like a second skin, and Jeremiah wanting to soothe him with his hands.

He remembers all of these things and more as he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a rosary he’s carried with him since his time in St. Ignatius.

For the first time in years, Jeremiah finds himself praying to a God he’s not sure he still believes in, for the sake of both his and Jerome’s souls.

_Save us from ourselves, Lord._

There is no answer within the night, no comfort to be found in his cell.  Jeremiah turns over, and still clutching the rosary, falls into an uneasy, dreamless sleep.

 

_If I’m the lesser of two evils  
Who’s this man, who’s this act I hide behind? _


End file.
